Sharing the Shenny Sauce
by tx-fictionqueen
Summary: "Why say no when you can say yes?" Rated T for content of the...undead...persuasion. ;)


**We are calling out to all Shenny fans and writers. We cordially invite you to participate in the Shenny ships fun one-shot story share we've named Sharing the Shenny Sauce. We want all Shenny fans to come together in our shared ship. If you're willing to join in, here are some rules:**

**Search for Taco Bell Sauce Sayings and choose the one you like most.**

**Place the title of your story as 'Sharing the Shenny Sauce' and place your phrase in the Summary and underneath the Author's Note describing the rules (like so). **

**Your story must be a one-shot between 500-1500 words (not including the A/N) **

**Your story may be of any genre or rating (yes…ANY rating *wink*wink*) **

**It MUST be a Shenny story. **

**Deadline is the end of March. **

**Let your creative juices flow and start creating!**

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><p><strong>AN: **"Why say no when you can say yes?"

Thanks to Risknight for telling me about this … I love this concept and all of you Shenny fans. Hope you guys enjoy.

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><p>Sheldon did not want the last words he ever said to Penny to be, "I could take it or leave it." But after 12 days of utter devastation and no word that she was even still alive, it seemed as though they would be.<p>

Twelve days ago, Sheldon woke up and looked out his window to welcome the morning sun's warmth on his face through the glass as he usually did. He scanned the street four stories down with his lazy blue eyes as he usually did. He saw a few people scuttling down the sidewalk and standing in line at the bagel cart as they usually did. Then he heard Penny banging around his kitchen in search of caffeine sustenance as she usually did.

Sheldon could not be sure what was different about finding her in the middle of pouring a cup of coffee into her red porcelain mug that morning. He could not be sure what possessed him to raise his voice and demand that she "quit spending money on trampy shoes and instead purchase her own darn groceries" in a vicious tenor that made his neighbor go red in the face and stare at him with emerald daggers. He could not even be sure as to why he engaged her in a cruel back-and-forth that ended with her trembling with anger and storming to the front door.

His eidetic memory engraved on the walls of his skull like street gang graffiti the way she whirled around and jutted one hip out before placing her hand on it and asking him the question that made her voice crack with something that was akin to pain.

"Why are you such an ass to me, Sheldon? Do you even value our friendship?"

"I could take it or leave it," he had replied, unnecessarily shrugging his shoulders for effect.

The slam of the door echoed and his anger subsided as he realized, not for the first time, that perhaps he had crossed a line of improper social interaction. With Leonard still away on the North Sea expedition with Hawking's team, he had no way of knowing exactly what he had done wrong…at that moment, anyway. He remembered walking back to his room after a few moments of erratic breathing, overcoming the sudden urge to follow her and apologize.

_For what? _he asked himself as he slipped his fingers between his curtains again and stared down at the street in the direction of the bagel cart. Penny frequented that cart right at the entrance of 2311 Los Robles Avenue when Leonard forgot to restock his coffee supply. But Penny wasn't in line at the bagel cart like he thought she would be—in fact, no one was in line anymore.

And in front of the cart was an expanding, oblong shape of a dark stain on the sidewalk. It was crimson and shimmered under the sun from his vantage point. Had someone spilled paint?

He shrugged and moved away from the window to call Amy for a ride to work since it didn't seem as though bumming one off of Penny would be an option today. But Amy never answered the phone. And he never made it to work that day. He barely made it back into his apartment alive.

The undead invaded Pasadena quickly with no warning except for a gurgle and groan before their decaying jaws clamped around your flesh. He saw the mailman's remains being devoured as he set out that morning to get to the bus stop. Shrieking and wailing, he ran back inside and bolted the glass door behind him just before an old man in a pale blue bath robe snapped his gray jowls at the air that once occupied Sheldon's head. He had been barricaded ever since.

Ten days ago, Howard, Bernadette and Mrs. Wolowitz, who had been on a cruise during the outbreak, Skyped Sheldon from Japan, where the ship had detoured since the outbreak was contained to just America. They would make it. They wished Sheldon luck, and to find Raj if he could.

Eight days ago, the cell phone towers went down. He would never hear from Raj.

Four days ago, Sheldon's apartment lost power, but not before the local news flashed the same image Los Angeles in ruins and people running around and looting, utter chaos, utter collapse. He swept every inch of his screen, looking for any sign of her and never finding one.

Red, red, Penny-less world.

He had plenty of water and unperishable food in the apartment, but he was running out of sanity. No friends, no family (did George Junior, Missy, and Mom get to Meemaw in time?), no Penny. He crossed the hall and let himself into apartment 4B, something he liked to do at night. Not only because her living space still smelled like her, but because there were too many windows in 4A. Windows that weren't soundproof.

At night, the undead thrived. He couldn't block out the moans of the ravenous zombies or the blood-curdling screams of the live stragglers they managed to find. Penny's place only had one window and it overlooked an alley. It was quietest in there.

He could make a run for it. He had an emergency hiking backpack filled with the essential zombie survival kit (Amy had called it a waste of resources and time. "The human brain simply is not capable of supporting the body once it has died, Sheldon.") and a machete (granted, he had no idea how to wield it, but he was a quick learner, to say the least), but every time the thought came across, he talked himself out of it. It was simply not logical. The threat was outside. He was inside. No harm could become him.

But she was out there.

The tears fell for the first time in 12 days and he grabbed the hot pink throw pillow beneath him on Penny's couch and pushed his face into it, hard, so hard that the cotton material invaded his nostrils and smothered his sobs. He yanked it away and gasped, drowning in the darkness around him.

His cries were so loud he didn't hear the door open but his ears perked up when he heard the scrape of footsteps across the throw rug in front of Penny's door. Since his back was to the entrance, he lunged forward and over the coffee table, crawling on his hands and knees to the kitchen to put space between him and whoever managed to breach the building he had taken almost two weeks to secure. He blinked through tears and swallowed the vibrations in his throat of his beating heart as he heard the intruder come closer to him. Their steps stopped in the center of the living room and a flashlight clicked on, washing Sheldon's legs with a shocking burst of light.

"I went to your apartment and when you weren't there, I almost fainted. I thought maybe you had went to work that morning and didn't make it."

His heart stopped; it would be the cruelest trick if he was just hearing things. On the other hand, if her voice was the last thing he heard before he slipped into madness, Sheldon thought maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. So he carefully stood up, weak with wanting, with hope, and saw her.

She had managed to find different clothes, trading that baby pink tank top and white PJ shorts from that morning for blue jeans and a long-sleeved, forest green thermal top. Her face was smeared with dirt and she was limping, but she was still Penny.

"Get your emergency bag and let's go," she said softly. "I came back for you. Come with me."

"I don't know what to say," he said, and it was true. Because there were a million things all at once, shoving each other to get ahead in line, that he wanted to say. At the top of the list was how glad he was to see her. And how had she survived? And that he was sorry.

She brought the flashlight to her face and gave him a tiny, almost imperceptible smile. "Why say no when you can say yes?"

Sheldon wanted to argue. This place was a fortress. But somehow, she had managed to get in. Logic was bleeding into unknown territory.

Logic didn't exist anymore.

And so he crossed the room in four steps and pushed his lips against Penny's until he could feel her teeth mashed against his. Then he eased back a little but only as far as she would let him. The flashlight had rolled to the floor and she wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing him closer and closer, like his breath mingling with hers was the only air capable of filling her lungs.

"Yes," Sheldon said before they grabbed their things and were off.

And if this was the last word Sheldon ever said to her as they ventured out into the unknown, dead-infested world, he would be just fine with that.

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><p><strong>AN pt. 2**: I went 17 words over the limit, and there may have been holes and OOC-ness, but THIS IS THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, PEOPLE. NO TIME TO FOLLOW RULES. ;)


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